


Chasm

by hmweasley



Series: HPFC Easter Egg Hunt 2018 [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley
Summary: Harry returns to Number 4 Privet Drive for the first time since he left at seventeen.





	Chasm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: a childhood bedroom.

When he’d left Privet Drive on his seventeenth birthday, Harry hadn’t expected to return whether he survived the war or not. There was no love lost between him and the Dursleys, and if his aunt couldn’t say something to him after sixteen years, then Harry had little hope she’d do so once he was out from under her roof and she could forget he existed.

But there he was, back in the house that had felt like a prison for the first two decades of his life. 

He’d been ushered in by his aunt, and though she looked as displeased to see him as ever, she’d offered him tea. She hadn’t asked him how he preferred it, yet when it was sat in front of him, it was just right. He watched her as she continued to move around the kitchen before laying a plate of biscuits in front of him and settling in across the table.

Harry wished Dudley was there to break the ice, but his cousin was off at university after three consecutive gap years of struggling between what he wanted and what his parents wanted. Harry had to applaud him for making the move to Cardiff, where he could escape his mother’s smothering.

“They want to begin showing the house next week,” Petunia began abruptly. “Everything must be clean and orderly by then, and goodness knows what you have stored in that room. No one’s touched a thing since you left.”

Harry had pretty well cleared it out five years ago.

“Aunt Petunia, I told Dudley that there isn’t anything in there I want. If anything’s left, it’s Dudley’s old things that were in there before I was.”

Her sniff told him that she didn’t believe him, which was fine. He’d known this trip was more about humouring her than retrieving anything. Merlin help him, but he felt bad for the woman. For all the cruelty she had shown him during his childhood, her husband had just died, and Harry couldn’t tell her to screw herself.

“I’ll go through whatever’s there,” he assured her, getting up from the table without excusing himself.

He was almost surprised when she let him navigate through the house himself without watching him like a hawk. Now that he was free to do magic outside of school, he’d expected her to be more frightened of him than she had been when he was underage, but she seemed uncomfortable only because he was the nephew she despised, not because he was a wizard.

The creak of the stairs was louder than he remembered, and it felt like it had been far longer than five years since he’d last climbed them. So much of the house felt unchanged. When he opened the door to his old bedroom, it was as if he’d never left. He could see that his aunt and uncle hadn’t bothered to dust the place. He trailed a finger along the top of the desk, leaving a trail, and smirked at the thought of his aunt letting her house become so unseemly.

Glancing around the room was all the confirmation he needed that he’d been right. There was nothing in here that was his, only Dudley’s, and he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the Dursley’s locking it up as if he’d hidden a monster in the wardrobe.

He sat down on the bed, wanting to buy time to make his aunt think he’d been thorough in his search, and felt that enveloping sense of familiarity again. The mattress was lumpy, and he could tell the sheets hadn’t been changed since he’d left.

His eyes roved over the space as he tried to decide how he felt. Mostly, it felt weird. The room held little attachment for him, and he found his thoughts drifting back to his aunt downstairs.

When he’d decided that he would come to Privet Drive, he’d debated telling Petunia everything. Part of him wanted to know what she would say if he told her that he knew about the letter she’d written Dumbledore all those years ago. She had no idea that Severus Snape had ever been his teacher, and he was curious what reaction dropping his name would get from her.

Though it held its appeal, he hadn’t been able to do it when he’d seen her. She was being peaceful. Quiet and standoffish, to be sure, but she hadn’t said anything cruel, and he couldn’t bring himself to change that by bringing up moments from the past that he knew would embarrass her.

He hadn’t forgiven her for what she’d done to him, but he at least knew her motivations. Part of him thought that discussing them with her could do them both a world of good, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

When he made it back downstairs, Petunia had already washed and dried his teacup. With a sigh, Harry informed her that the room was free of his things. He’d even cleaned it for her, though he didn’t say outright that he’d used magic to do so.

She hardly looked at him as he left, and he knew, deep in his heart, that he’d never see her again.


End file.
